Still Burns
by Rothelena
Summary: SPOILERS! Jane and Lisbon- apart and heart-broken. Careful: VERY sad! Very short. Complete for now, but maybe there's more- don't know yet due to writer's block . Rated T just to be sure.


_Hello, my dear ones- yes, Loralei Martins gave me a murderous writer's block before I even met her…yes, she doesn't make it easy for me to like her. But I swore I would try…_

_Unfortunately, my willingness to give this most unwelcome storyline a chance has left me with the worst possible case of writer's block. I can't write anything before the finale is over, I'm afraid, and I think that afterwards, ignoring Loralei will possibly be the only way to continue- if I can do that depends on how much I'm gonna Iike her. If I find her mucho sympatico, I might have to wait until she's gone for good. Awwww, it's all so complicated- I wish he wouldn't get a new love interest, but hey: I can't change it. So I'm just gonna suck it up._

_Sorry for letting you down, but my muse is an unfaithful thing at the moment, and I have to wait if she makes up her mind eventually._

_This is just a very short piece, not sexy and (I'm afraid) pretty sad. But I'm pretty sad at the moment, too. It's full of speculations, based on spoilers that might prove deceiving…it's just a short fling about what Lisbon could be feeling after Jane is gone._

_Disclaimer: It's Bruno's- not mine. And I have to follow him wherever he leads me- but I don't have to like it, dammit!_

**Still Burns**

When she flexed her fingers, she wondered that she could still move them, that there was still life under the tingling skin which had become so pale it seemed translucent sometimes.

She looked towards his empty couch, feeling the pain like the ache from an amputated limb. Phantom hurt. Crippling her from within, a disability that filled her throat until she choked on it.

He was gone.

She hadn't been fired because of him, as she'd always believed she would one day. He had chewed her thoroughly and spit her out on the pavement, where the cold asphalt burned into her cheeks. Never in her life had she felt so alone. Never in her life had she lost the will to fight. Now she couldn't see any further than the next wall sometimes. Getting through everyday life in baby steps.

Her heart reached out to him, sometimes first thing in the morning. She hoped he had found some kind of contentment. People who cared for him.

But she knew, deep down in her churning guts, that it wasn't possible.

He was alone and desperate and she could do nothing. She hated Wainwright so much it took all her willpower to leave him alive. How could he be so cold, so nonchalant about giving away the greatest treasure he'd ever had under his hands in his spineless, unremarkable career?

Sure, Jane had lost it. He'd broken her heart and everybody else's in the process.

But at the end of the day, he proved to be the only, the ONLY thing that had made it all worthwhile. She would have burned out long ago without him.

There'd never been anything between them except friendship, but it had been enough: he'd been her soul mate nonetheless. And now- she felt amputated. The tears were flowing freely again, she had cried a bucketful these past days, she hardly noticed anymore. Her face a stretch of wet skin. The bullpen as empty as her heart.

His couch beckoned to her, and she followed as if lured by a siren's call. His call. The thought gave her an uncomfortable tremor in her stomach, butterflies batting their wings against the walls of her empty stomach.

She switched out every lamp she passsed, leaving darkness like footsteps.

The leather was cool, but it quickly warmed under her skin, bringing memories of his scent, his warmth, a warmth she could feel although he'd almost never touched her. She had felt it over the expanse of hallways and offices. It had accompanied her everywhere, told her she was home. She'd never known how important it had been- until she'd lost it.

She'd always known she would lose it one day. But she had hoped. Damn, she had hoped so much.

Her tears left dark stains on the faded leather, and she turned onto her back, staring at the Elvis-shaped spot on the ceiling, half-swallowed in darkness. She closed her eyes when the relentless moisture blurred her vision so much she couldn't make out the shapes around her any longer.

She imagined him, a structure formed from ghostly mist, hovering above her, extending shadowy hands which prickled against her skin. She clenched her eyes shut and could almost imagine that it were his hands driving under her thin blouse, his fingers tapping against her flat stomach. She tried to imagine his kiss, the pressure of his lips against hers, tried to conduct a taste she had never sampled.

Why hadn't she kissed him when there'd still been time?

Her eyes snapped open while her mind still clung to the fantasy as if it could keep her from drowning. But the mist dissolved, and the cold that followed was paralyzing.

xxMentalistxx

He had to stop drinking, Jane thought when his head snapped up to the ceiling. The lights were as blaring and unforgiving as always, but deep inside him, he felt a tiny starburst of colors- someone walking over his grave. As if somewhere in the universe, someone had just thought about him.

He smiled a humorless smile.

He could guess who that someone was.

He played with his wedding ring as if it held memories of her as much as of his late wife.

His stomach felt really, really bad, and he hadn't eaten in quite a while, which made nothing better. But his appetite had completely fled him, strong smells made him nauseous, which meant that this was the state he was in all the time now. Las Vegas was a flurry of sensations, inescapable, and Jane had so tried to simply submerge.

He had tried to destroy his memory palace, to forget, let the things of his past go like dust on a breath. Without success. He had awful dreams, and the ones of a bloody face painted on a chalky wall were the nicest. The bad ones were those where he woke up next to her, warm and content. Where she smiled at him, her huge forest green eyes showing emotions he had always forbidden himself to fantasize into her features. Those were the brutal dreams, showing him what he'd never had and would never have.

Forgive me, his mind screamed. For no matter what I have done- I never, ever wanted to hurt you.

But he had. Had crushed her heart like the petals of a flower. It had pained him so much he could still feel the black spot in his heart, tainting his soul into the next century.

He couldn't undo it. Escape had been the only thing on his mind afterwards. Until the dreams had started.

In those dreams he bought a house with her, got a dog, talked about children.

His stomach heaved.

In those dreams he had built a future he'd never owned, fool that he was. It has never been within his reach, and he'd just been stupid and naïve.

He closed his eyes and evoked her image from his mind. Smiled a sad, heart-broken smile when he saw her moving through the bullpen in her square cop walk, so strange on a woman that tiny. His little Lisbon. The only one who had wanted to be his friend.

Why hadn't he hugged her more?

He should have started every day holding her close. Enjoying her while he'd had her. Part of him had always known it couldn't last, had been too good to happen to someone like him. Now his devotion to her only added to his guilt, and he knew he deserved it.

He'd killed the trust of his only friend. Had proven to her that he couldn't be controlled, would never truly be one of the good guys. He'd seen the disappointment in her eyes- would carry it like a medal to the end of his days, pulling him down.

He had to get moving. His next show would start in an hour, and he looked as if he'd slept in the gutter for days.

He opened his eyes and almost sobbed when her shape dissolved, the memory pinching his heart until he absently started to rub his chest.

The cold that followed stopped him from moving for another twenty minutes.

His breaths were heaving aches in his chest, for no matter what he tried to teach his mind, his heart wouldn't stop blabbering.

He watched his thoroughly disheveled reflection in the huge mirror behind the bar.

You fool, he thought. Whom do you think you are kidding. It still burns. It always will.

And he got up and raced to his tiny hotel room, tears streaking his face, leaving tattletale signs of a soul he couldn't shut up.

Because as long as her memory burned in his very soul, he couldn't become cold. She doomed him for eternity.

Saint Teresa.

_Sorry….SAD. I'm so sad. Three days until I'll see what happens between them, I'm pretty torn between absolutely NEEDING to see it and anxious dread. Thanks for all your feedback, messages, encouragement, friendship. I so hope there's more in me, and that I can write a lot over the summer hiatus. Maybe it isn't as bad as I imagine it now- there's always hope. But no matter what happens: Thank you for always being there when I needed it most! What a wonderful community you are… I'm proud that you read my poor musings! THANK YOU SO MUCH!_


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